Algorithms applied in public administration are often criticized for lack of transparency. Lawmakers and citizens alike expect that automated decisions based on algorithmic recommendations to be explainable. The focus of this article is the organizational context behind the idea of transparent algorithms. Transparency is portrayed as one of numerous values that are at play when algorithms are applied in public administration. The article shows that applying algorithms may lead to conflicts between these values. Such conflicts often result in trade-off decisions. Looking from the organizational perspective, we describe how such trade-offs can be made both explicitly and implicitly. The article thus shows the complexity of algorithmic trade-offs. As a result of this complexity, we not only call for more transparency about algorithms, but also more transparency about trade-offs that take place in public administration. Finally, we present a research agenda focused on studying the organization of trade-offs.

Citizens and scholars excel in identifying and analysing government failure. It is important indeed to understand public sector, but while governments in the Low Countries are doing well on average and very well from an internationally perspective, most attention is focused on the errors and mishaps. This article argues for a robust positive perspective on the public sector as a complement to existing research. From a scientific perspective, public administration must set itself the ambition to connect and aggregate existing positive insights even better. From a social perspective, the discipline must prevent the gap from being filled by a wholesale rejection of democratic government or the use of unproven miracle cures. This article elaborates the starting points for Positive Public Administration, arguing that this perspective should be comprehensive, context related, inter-subjective, learning-oriented, and robustly scientific in nature. The article also introduces the other contributions in this special issue, which together give an initial interpretation of positive public administration.

The future is inherently uncertain. No certain statements can be made about the future. This means that policy and management always have to deal with long-term ‘future uncertainty’. However, it does matter how we name uncertainty; what words we use for it. What kind of uncertainty do we mean when we talk about uncertainty in policy processes and management? The same applies to the type of preparation for uncertainty that we choose. The question ‘are we prepared’ can also be answered in different ways. In this contribution we identify a variety of types of uncertainty and types of ways of dealing with uncertainty, based on the text of my Inaugural Speech delivered in 2016. I then discuss how these questions have been translated into research and education and which next steps I foresee for myself in the – although inherently uncertain – near future.

South Africa underwent an unprecedented transition in 1994. The country changed from the Apartheid regime into a system founded on the principles of the rule of law and equal treatment for all. Along with this political regime change, a wide range of social rights were included in the Constitution, which grants al citizens a constitutional right to a wide range of social services. Moreover, the system of governance and organisation of services was designed according to the latest insights from the then emerging new public management paradigm. Now, twenty years later, the system is crumbling; many of the basic services are not properly provided to citizens. Partly, this is a consequence of a basic absence of integrity in parts of the political class and in elements of the civil service. However, as we illustrate in a case analysis of the Water Boards in the Western Cape Province, the problem is also a consequence of the design of the system of governance. The combination of unlimited constitutional access to services and a stringent regime of new public management principles in the organisation of service provision has led to a serious crisis of performance. Therefore, the solution for the problem may be to redesign the system according to other governance principles, such as learning governance and networked governance.

A major issue confronting Dutch municipalities is that informal help is not being accepted. This concerns potential clients who avoid or are reluctant to ask for support that can be provided by friends, family, neighbours or volunteers. This phenomenon of non-acceptance is still underexplored and our theoretical understanding is fragmented at best. We explore various explanations for why people avoid seeking help, drawn from various and – until now – largely separate bodies of literature. From an extensive literature review across the disciplines of psychology, sociology and public administration, we distil four possible causes for refusing to accept help. We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications and possible future research avenues.

The field of public administration research is continuously changing. This article takes stock of the field by asking four open questions to a large group of public administration practitioners and scholars. The questions prompt a debate about the state of play of the field of public administration in The Netherlands. Several dilemmas become apparent. Firstly, there is the tension between rigor and relevance of research. More rigorous methodology should not come at the expense of relevance in practice. Moreover, pressure to publish in international academic journals draws scholars away from the more practical outlets for research findings. Ever more is ‘written’, but less of that reaches the more practical audiences. This is congruent with the impression that public administration scholars should invest more in their narratives, so that the important message of public administration research reaches wider audiences and helps to reflect on pressing societal issues. Furthermore, there is a need for public administration scholars to be more active in helping practitioners solve the complex policy puzzles they face. This requires the ability to walk the fine line between keeping distance and becoming genuinely involved in policy processes. All of these factors can help the field of public administration take next steps in its development, to regain the connection with practice and raise its academic standards.

Risks taken by some organizations may have considerable impact on society. In this contribution the assessment and management of risk are perceived to take place in a multi-actor setting. Within an organization operators, risk managers, and top managers interact about risk assessments and risk mitigation strategies. Public regulators and inspectorates increasingly focus on risk management systems instead of the operational activities or organizational outputs. Are organizations systematically assessing their risks? This contribution identifies two contrasting perspectives on risk assessment and risk mitigation in literature: risk management and risk governance. An empirical study in three sectors reveals evidence of both perspectives in practice. Companies adopt hybrid approaches, which are essential for the quality of risk assessment and mitigation. Indeed, adopting just one perspective seems dangerous. We conclude that public regulators and inspectorates might provide incentives to focus on just one perspective and suggest two heuristics for public inspectorates that respect hybrid approaches of risk assessment and mitigation.

Worldwide, cities are becoming increasingly important in global networks. The rise of cities and urban regions is widely described in academic literature. Cities are becoming essential players in networks on three scales: on an international scale as a hub in global networks, on a regional scale in partnerships as a consequence of the necessity of upscaling and on a local scale, in cooperation with citizens. This article addresses what this rise of the city, operating in complex networks on different scales, means for the position and tasks of the mayor, as a representative of the city. The article describes the modern challenges for the mayoral function and role in an emerging network society and addresses the growing importance of strong personal and transactional leadership while operating in networks both inside and outside the municipality.

Dramatic incidents, such as the 1986 Challenger Disaster, induce the instalment of a Commission to investigate the process that lead to the incident. The Commission attempts to reconstruct the many smaller and larger steps towards the one or several decisions and actions that turned out to be vital – and sometimes fatal. Most Commissions serve a dual purpose; the want to learn lessons and avert similar incidents to occur again, but they are also part of a process to allocate responsibilities and – sometimes – to point the blame. An analysis of Commission-reports reveals two dominant patterns in the narratives Commissions produce. One is relatively simple and identifies the decision or action that caused the incidents; it shows the mistakes that were made, when and by who, The lessons is often to not make the same mistake again. The second pattern is more complicated and produces less ‘crisp’ explanations for the incident. Decisions, actions take place in ambiguous, complex and inherently uncertain contexts. Actors acts amidst such complexity, are subject to all sorts of dynamics and pressures and in the process do things that look awkward or wrong in hindsight. Mistakes happen, not because actors are not smart enough or do the wrong things, but because they are an inherent element of complex decision making. The lesson that follows from that is for organizations that make important decisions under complex conditions to organize checks and balances and look for heterogeneity in their processes. That produces a difficult dilemma, given the ambivalent role of commissions. The second line of reasoning produces much richer lessons for policy, but is very ‘soft’ in casting blame. The first line of reasoning is clearer about responsibility and blame, but oversimplifies the lessons. That draws attention to a crucial – and yet unanswered – question for researchers, practitioners and also the general public; do we see them as platforms for learning or tools for sanctioning?

Interview with Winnie Sorgdrager, member of the Council of State of the Netherlands

In co-production processes, citizens and professionals both contribute to the provision of public services and try to enhance the quality of the services they produce. Although government offers several opportunities for co-production, not all citizens decide to actually take part. Current insights in citizens’ individual motivations offered by the co-production literature are limited. In this article, we integrate insights from different streams of literature to build a theoretical model that explains citizens’ motivations to co-produce. We test the model using empirical data of Dutch neighborhood watches.

In this contribution we analyze the content of the Veerman Commission’s report that in 2007/2008 advised the Dutch government on the necessity of measures to protect the coast against future rising waters and other climatological and environmental changes and challenges. We conclude that the content of the report is in itself an expression of the ongoing social and governmental debate and process that tries to create a sense of urgency since there is no real immediate crisis to facilitate changes. Thus the report is not only the result of the work of the commission (though its firm statements on the necessity of measures were clearly heard), but at the same time the reflection of an ongoing debate which also creates a new challenge for stakeholders in the water domain. The organizational recommendations of the commission to place the protection against rising waters as far away from day to day politics as possible have all been put into action, which is a noteworthy result. Still, it is the ongoing process between stakeholders that will determine the actual measures to be taken by the government water related bodies.

This article discusses the realization of public value through social entrepreneurship. It shows practices that can at present be seen in the Dutch society and answers the question: what is the relation between social entrepreneurship and the realization of value in the public domain? We conclude that public value is at the same time the result of the efforts of a social entrepreneur (person) in the beginning of his endeavors, the presupposition for social entrepreneurship (activity) in the phase of growth and the good that is preserved by the social enterprise (organization) by the time it has matured. In realizing public value social entrepreneurs come into contact with government. For government this encounter has quite an awkward nature since government has at the same time both a say (it is responsible for policy) and no say (it is not responsible for individual social entrepreneurial initiatives) regarding the realization of value in the public domain through social entrepreneurship.

Amidst the turbulence of recent crises, governments’ capacity to govern and to deliver public value is under serious pressure. Public institutions are working hard to come up with new and improved schemes for dealing with complex and wicked policy issues that have emerged or just wont go away. But government alone cannot solve most of these issues. Governments already attempted to make ‘better, smarter policy’ in the hopes of raising performance. They also invested heavily in ‘participation’ of citizens, by inviting them to ‘co-create’ policy or ‘join-up’ with government agencies. However, this image of collaboration is one-sided. Besides the efforts initiated by governments themselves, there is a wide array of emerging activities. In these practices, it is not the government that takes action, but society takes ‘public matters’ into its own hands. Just as in many other countries, in The Netherlands groups of citizens have started to organize certain services, tasks or activities that used to be provided by the central or decentralized governmental institutions by themselves (and in most cases, for themselves). This article conceptualizes these emerging practices and analyses how they affect the world of policy making and what they may mean for public administration research.

This article explores the role of frames about the future in policy reform, by analysing Dutch debates about population ageing and their impact on welfare policies in the period from 2000 until 2008 as a case study. Mapping the debates around ageing in the Netherlands, the article demonstrates that frames are a powerful force in the policy process. Diverging frames about the future enable fundamental changes of deeply embedded policy institutions. The case study shows the process of argumentation about the future that took place between 2000 and 2008, and reflects upon the frames about the future that were of crucial importance in bringing temporary closure to the controversy over the proper response to the demographic shift, which then lead to several important and rather strong changes in institutions of welfare state policies and fiscal policies.

By law Dutch companies providing drinking water have to remain in public hands. In practice, public shareholders often fulfil their role in an informal fashion and without much engagement. They hardly intervene to protect the public interest. Public ownership is deemed to be crucial but its effects are difficult to measure. In this article, we examine the (ever changing and varying) institutional conditions of two public water companies and discuss whether these conditions enable public shareholders to properly control these companies. By comparing the opinions and experiences of directly involved respondents, this article aims to answer the question whether and how public shareholders are able to act as regulators. There are indications that this kind of regulation will not be efficient enough when needed, though those involved do not see this as a problem. This article offers suggestions for municipalities and provinces to reflect more on their role in the drinking water sector.

This paper reviews developments in political-administrative relations in Dutch central government from 2002-2012. It highlights the strengths/weaknesses of Dutch structures and processes in managing the interface between ministers and the public service. It signals a number of key trends in the political context of executive government that are going to put pressure on the status quo, and examines the much more centralised and politically orchestrated Australian system for pointers towards possible ways in which these contextual changes are going to be.